A Northumberland woman who waited 38 years after finding out she had a long lost sister cried with happiness as she finally met her brother.
Lisa Harding, 53, only learned that her older sister Alexandra was put up for adoption when she was four weeks old, as a teenager.
Their mother Moyra gave birth when she was 20 but was unmarried and felt unable to care for her daughter on her own.
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Decades later, as Moyra battled terminal cancer, she expressed regret for giving up her child.
Speaking on ITV’s Long Lost Family, Lisa said, “She kept saying she wanted to have two daughters to raise. She had started looking for Alexandra and it was her last wish that I find her and let her know that she was loved and wanted.
Fortunately, the program team was able to track down Lisa’s sister, who was renamed Lily by her adoptive family, who had kept Alexandra as their middle name.
Lisa is thrilled to find the sister she has always dreamed of having, having been raised by a single mother who worked long hours – as a hairdresser by day and a cab driver by night.
It was a lonely childhood and Lisa, who has 15-year-old daughter Lea, along with her partner Phil, always wished she had a sister: “Being raised as an only child is a very lonely thing. and I’ve always wanted a brother. It’s a feeling that is deep within you, that you are alone.
The team discovers that Lily Drummond now lives right next to Lisa’s family in Berwick-Upon-Tweed, Northumberland.
Lily had never looked for her biological family because she feared her mother wouldn’t want her.
She trembles with emotion as host Nicky Campbell tells her that Moyra has felt the pain of leaving her all her life – and that she tried to find her. “I’m glad she looked for me. I’m happy because there’s always this rejection, that’s probably why I didn’t go looking, ”she says. “I never thought she was looking for me. It makes it … better.
Like Lisa, Lily always dreamed of having a sister. “From a young age I was like, ‘Oh, what it must be like to have a sister. It would have been nice to grow up and be close to each other.
After an emotional encounter, which Lisa described as “one of the happiest times of my life”, the couple now plan to stay close. She said: “I have dreamed of having a sister all my life. I feel like coming home, like someone is waiting for me.
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